Calving made easy for West Coast farmer with Animate

• Published date: 11 May 2022
• Publication title: West Coast Farming Times, The

In April of 2021, he purchased 200 cross-bred cows from the farm's existing herd and 110 Jersey carryovers to round out his herd. Prior to that he managed dairy farms for six years on the West Coast, in the Grey Valley and the Kokatahi Valley

During Matt's time as a manager, milk fever was an expected issue every spring. Despite using common prevention efforts - magnesium and lime flour dusting - he would still have an average of 4-5% of the herd presenting with clinical hypocalcaemia.

With 30% of Matt's herd being Jersey carryover cows over 5.5 body condition score and starting his first season sharemilking on a new farm while short staffed, milk fever was an issue that would cost him time and resources that he simply did not have.

With that he decided to use Phibro's Animate program, a unique palatable Anionic negative DCAD supplement.

Matt had used negative DCAD's in the past with no great success and was very sceptical at first, due to struggling to get his cows ingesting enough of the product for it to be effective and having them put off their feed at a critical period of the season.

Megan from Phibro Animal Health visited Matt to discuss how Animate would help his cows and options on how to feed Animate to his springers. With Animate being very palatable, and for the farm system Matt was running, it was decided that adlib trailer feeding would work best to provide the product to his animals.

Megan worked out the DCAD of the transition diet and recommended feeding 500g of Animate per cow per day over the springer period (14-21 days pre calf).

Matt found trailer feeding extremely easy.

"Based on the size of the springer mob, I would take a few bags to either the paddock or the standoff pad and just empty them into the meal feeder. A group of about 10 cows would immediately take a couple of mouthfuls and then head off for a feed of silage or a drink. When I stayed and watched, all the cows would visit the trailer over the course of about an hour and eat the Animate before heading...